[Commlist] Call for Abstracts Global Screen Worlds: An International Workshop

Call for Abstracts
Global Screen Worlds: An International Workshop
SOAS University of London, UK
September 2021

“Comparative film studies…must necessarily proceed by way of a 
collaboration between intellectuals from different geo-historical 
formations. The precondition for such a collaboration is that the 
participants should be prepared to consider their own intellectual 
formations and thought-habits as symptomatic constellations shaped by 
the very same dynamics that animate historicity itself.” Paul Willemen, 
“For a comparative film studies”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6.1 (2005): 99

“We need to forge ‘off-centered’ networks of individual scholars, 
academic programs and institutions, and venues for publication 
internationally.  The final goal is not to create a globally unified 
discursive space of film studies, but to forge new networks and channels 
of communication.”
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, “A future of comparative film studies”, Inter-Asia 
Cultural Studies 14.1 (2013): 54-61

In September 2021, a three-day, fully-funded workshop will be held at 
SOAS University of London as part of the ERC-funded project “Screen 
Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies”. This workshop will form 
part of the “Global Screen Worlds” strand of the project which – 
inspired by Willemen’s and Yoshimoto’s words above – calls for 
comparative, interdisciplinary and “off-centered” approaches to Film and 
Screen Studies. The workshop and the Open Access edited volume that will 
result from it are, accordingly, designed to inspire and facilitate 
collaborative dialogue, research, and authorship among Film and Screen 
scholars from different parts of the world, but especially from Africa, 
Asia, and Latin America, and those working on indigenous cinemas.
Film and Screen Studies still largely situates itself within an 
Anglo-American, European framework. This workshop wants to contribute to 
work that takes the field beyond this geographical bias by developing 
new frameworks and methodologies that foreground how the specific 
histories, languages, politics and cultures of particular places shape 
and interact with narrative screen media. Rather than the top-down 
nature of a “world cinema” approach – in which one, lone scholar 
attempts to be an expert on multiple film cultures – we encourage a 
grassroots approach in which we will seek to move towards more universal 
understandings of “global screen worlds” from the specific and 
particular. The way we aim to do this is by inviting participants to 
‘pair up’ with other screen scholars with similar interests but working 
from or on very different places to co-author work that brings “screen 
worlds” from two or more diverse contexts into conversation without 
losing local specificity. We recognise that this is a highly ambitious 
undertaking and we will offer support with ‘pairing up’ to those eager 
to participate but who do not have scholarly contacts in other regions.
In the workshop and edited volume we want to explore and compare 
diegetic screen worlds within films, and also how industrial screen 
worlds operate (i.e. modes of film production, distribution and 
exhibition). We seek proposals that aim to pay attention to diegetic 
similarities, differences and/or significant affinities across narrative 
screen texts from two or more particular contexts, and/or study actual 
screen connections (in line with critical transnational cinema studies, 
cf. Higbee and Lim 2010) or parallel screen histories (e.g. how two 
distinct regional cinemas that have not interacted have nevertheless had 
similar experiences). We are interested in comparative analyses that 
cover, for example, issues of stardom, genre, and melodrama; the films 
and experiences of female and/or LGBTQ+ filmmakers; themes related to 
intersectional identities (race, gender, class, ability); the roles of 
film festivals and “live” cinematic events such as premieres; how 
video-on-demand platforms and/or the “televisual turn” is affecting the 
creation, circulation and consumption of narrative screen media; 
cross-cultural representation (e.g. how Africans are represented in 
Asian films and vice versa); modes of working with sound and music, as 
well as issues of subtitling, dubbing and live ‘voicing’ in cinema; the 
use of narrative screen media (including creative documentaries) within 
movements for social change and justice; and self-reflexive and 
autobiographical modes of filmmaking. Specific questions we are 
interested in exploring include, but are certainly not limited to:
-	What can be achieved through comparative analysis of experimental 
cinema in Senegal and Palestine in the 1970s, or of contemporary science 
fiction cinema in Kenya and Palestine? -	How can thinking about the work 
of Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong) and Mahamat Saleh Haroun (Chad) help us to 
explore the overlaps between arthouse and popular cinema? -	Given that 
many African and Asian filmmakers were trained in the Soviet Union, what 
impact has this had upon their work? -	Why have Bollywood and South 
Korean drama been so popular in certain parts of Africa?
-	Why, in a global context of a shift to online film viewing, has there 
been a recent increase in cinema-building and cinema-going in places 
such as Ethiopia and Pakistan? -	Why has China become so interested in 
representing Africa in its diegetic screen worlds and in contributing to 
industrial screen worlds in Africa through investment in Chinese film 
festivals and Chinese television stations in Africa? -	How are video on 
demand platforms such as GagaooLaLa, V-Live, ALT Balaji, BigFlix, 
Oksusu, Voot, Pooq, iflix, and Qiyi changing the forms and routes of 
screen media?
-	Do terms such as “world cinema” or “transnational cinema” remain 
important categories of analysis when it comes to contemporary screen 
media and why/why not?
All submissions will need to engage, in some way, with the concept of 
“screen worlds”, which we put forward as a heuristic device to encourage 
creative, provocative approaches in relation to screen media. We 
strongly encourage submissions from both established and early career 
researchers. Participants must, however, be interested in working 
closely in a collaborative, supportive way with one or more 
co-author(s), with other workshop participants, and with the editors. 
Submissions need to include:
i)	An abstract of 500 words (highlighting whether you wish to be ‘paired 
up’ by us with a scholar from a different region)
ii)	A statement of 500 words about why you are interested in participating
iii)	A biography of 300 words Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 
February 2020

Submit to: Professor Lindiwe Dovey ((LD18 /at/ soas.ac.uk)) and Professor Kate 
Taylor-Jones ((k.e.taylor-jones /at/ sheffield.ac.uk)) Please note: we will 
notify you by 15 March 2020 as to whether we are interested in your 
abstract. If we are, we will expect a full chapter draft of 6-8,000 
words by 15 February 2021. Final decisions about who is selected for the 
workshop will depend on the quality of these drafts. All transport, 
accommodation, visa, and meal costs will be fully covered for selected 
participants. Please note that, in addition to workshopping the chapters 
during event, there will be several inspiring keynote presentations by 
leading international screen media scholars, practitioners and creative 
researchers.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council 
(ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation 
programme (grant agreement No. 819236).

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